Packet Loss of upto 20%

[Sayek]

I was also in the same position as you...as shown on the BQM on my 1st reply.

I think its worth  try to plug the Sky router to ONT and connect the Netgear to Sky for couple weeks as a trial so you have proved your point. When I called Sky to complaint...the 1st thing they said plug the Sky router otherwise they won't assist any further.

Also I appreciate the Netgear is capable router..IMO its a 10 year old Wi-Fi AC1900 that was fit for purpose back in the days...maybe the router also getting tired.  

Just my 2 cent 😊

[baldy1]

I am not sure I can. I rely on VPN connections to my office which are configured on the netgear router. From what I have read, the Sky router doesn't support this nor will it support being put in model only mode. Unless someone has information on how to do this?

[TimmyBGood]

@baldy1 

There isn't any domestic Sky Hub model which has a modem mode, not do they support on-router VPNs

Sky doesn't intentionally block software VPN use but their use of IPv4 address sharing on circuits arriving through a white Max Hub is known to cause issues with some business VPN solutions: customers can opt-out of this.

[baldy1]

Poor service continues. Last night was pretty bad, online gaming is just not possible on this connection.

[Chrisee]

@baldy1 couple of points the first is the packet loss appears to coincide with when you are using the connection and the Netgear router is busy. There are no losses at other times which if Sky's network were losing packets you would expect. Looks to me that your router is not responding to low priority ping requests when it is  busy 

Sky's diagnostic systems require a Sky hub to be connected to get this checked out you would ned to have data for several days before I would expect Sky to take your matter seriously.

[jamesn123]

@baldy1 

What kind of speed do you currently see through your Netgear hub? Do you use QoS on it?

[Emma_R]

Hi,

Just chirping in with the same issue. We are seeing significant packet loss (10-25%) between the hours of 2000-2200hrs BST. This has been happening since July according to our router logs.

I am running a commercial grade network setup, including an opnsense firewall running on a 4-core cpu with 16GB of memory.

During the periods of packet loss...

- There is minimal WAN traffic originating from our network

- CPU usage is minimal, < 1%.

- Latencies remain normal - 8-10ms

- Packet loss fluctuates between 10-25%.

Here is the packet loss graph.

Without doubt this is an issue with Sky. My guess is they are intentionally dropping packets within their infra as they cannot handle the network load during evening peak when many people are streaming video.

This level of packet loss renders the broadband service from Sky unusable, and therefore they are failing to deliver the service that people are paying for.

Please address this.

Many thanks.

[baldy1]

@Chrisee I'm sorry but you are wrong. I use the connection all day as I work from home. The load on my router does not suddenly jump at 6pm. What is actually causing this is congestion on the connection... to many users using the same connection. During peak times the amount of data is larger than the bandwidth meaning the system drops packets to try to manage it. This is either Sky's network or there is too much load on my connection at the exchange.

[baldy1]

@Chrisee Further evidence to prove this... I have been away on business for 2 days. No one was in the house last night 17th, if no one is in using the broadband then why would I see packet loss still??

[Emma_R]

Another evening of poor broadband performance from Sky, Packet loss is now hitting 40% and speeds are down to 5 Mb/s

How can I raise this issue with Sky without going through the customer support funnel which will want me to connect the Sky Hub?

Many thanks,

[JimM1]

@Emma_R There is no wanting from sky, they will insist that you put the sky hub back on the connection! Simple as that!

[Chrisee]

@baldy1 It is theoretically possible that the Openreach distribution point you are coonected to is fully sold so 29other conections are all using the connection heavily at once from 6pm but statistically that is quite unlikely. However if thst is true there is nothing Sky can do to change as that is how Openreach's passive optical network serving your home  is organised. It is also possible but unlikely there is congestion in the Sky connection from your exchange that is these days very unusual.

The point remains though that to get Sky to take this seriously is to run the connection via the Sky hub for a few weeks and then report the issue to them. Given the far more likely cause is an issue with your own set up which do happen you have to overcome that assumption.

[Emma_R]

Tha'ts understandable Chrisee, however in this case, it's unfortunate that Sky are unwilling to take onboard the empirical evidence.

I cannot operate my network using the Sky Hub as I will lose functionality I depend on.

Luckily our contract is up next month so we can move to another provider.

[Sayek]

I also had issues at  peak times using my own router direct to ONT around the same time while my son was playing games.

But once I plugged sky router back..all good.

I have plugged my own router back to the ONT this morning and will monitor the behaviour for a week.

These are the previous BQM with own router plugged to ONT.